Bob Barker Eager To Host His Show

Game show host Bob Barker was released on Saturday from George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., following a nine-day stay for treatment of a blocked artery.

"I am feeling fine and looking forward to resting so I can soon return to work," the host of TV's The Price is Right said in a statement.

Doctors ordered Barker, 75, to rest for a few weeks but gave him permission to fly home to Los Angeles today, said hospital spokeswoman Lisa Saisselin.

Barker was hospitalized on Sept. 16 while visiting Washington. Tests revealed his left carotid artery was 85 percent blocked. He underwent a procedure on Monday to clear the blockage.

During his hospital stay, Barker received a flood of calls, cards and gifts, Saisselin said.

"Bob Barker has received more attention than any congressman or senator hospitalized," she said.

Humor's a bit scarce in the town of Turkey

Not everyone in Turkey, Texas, is thrilled at the chance to yuk it up on the Late Show with David Letterman. Biff Henderson, stage manager for the CBS show and a regular on-screen foil for Letterman, was in town with a crew last week to interview residents for a segment on the program.

"A lot of people didn't want to be subjected to it," said Gary Johnson, who owns the Hotel Turkey. "But my theory is, if you live in Turkey, Texas, you need to have a sense of humor anyway."

Moon walker touts space travel for all

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin did it, and now he says it's time for others. Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon 30 years ago, doesn't think the experience should be so rare.

It's time for "ordinary people to go into space," says, Aldrin who will be the featured speaker on Monday at a fund-raising dinner in Albuquerque for New Mexico First, a public advocacy group.

"We should be sending up a journalist by October 2000 who can tell people in a professional way what it's like to go into space," Aldrin said in a telephone interview last week.

"Then every six months or so," he said, "NASA should make space available, a seat on the shuttle for regular people to go into orbit."

The thrill of creating is over; on to Atlanta

It's time for a change, so Kenny Rogers is putting his modest little home up for sale at auction.

Beaver Dam Farms, a 360-acre estate eight miles northeast of Athens, Ga., has a 32-room main house that Rogers designed and decorated himself, plus a guest house with two separate living quarters.

It also has its own 18-hole, par-72 golf course, two horse barns with a total of 56 stalls, its own lakefront beach and waterfall, and a lake house with floating deck.

Prospective bidders for the Nov. 4 auction will have to produce a $250,000 cashier's check to prove they're serious, but there is no minimum opening bid.

"Kenny never expressed any concern over the price," said William Bone, president of National Auction Group, the Alabama company handling the auction. Rogers has said he's selling because he and his wife want to live closer to Atlanta.

On the block: Al Hirt's old digs

The French Quarter house in New Orleans that trumpeter Al Hirt walked away from in 1990 is up for sale, along with all of its contents.

The trouble is, the auctioneers don't know which are the real Al Hirt mementos and which belonged to the couple who bought the house from him.

Hirt, who died in April, sold the house in 1990 to pay off what he owed to the Internal Revenue Service. The new owners kept just about everything.

Today's auction is for everything not bolted into the walls or ceiling. The asking price for the house itself is $625,000.

ALMANAC

It's the 269th day of the year; 96 days are left in 1999. On this date:

In 1898, composer George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn.

In 1960, Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy met in Chicago in the first televised debate between presidential candidates.

In 1986, William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice, while Antonin Scalia became the Supreme Court's 103rd member.